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Realtors Reveal Secrets About Houses They Sold That Disturbed Them The Most

08.28.2017

By Alan Jude Ryland

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Who knew you'd need a strong stomach to be a realtor?

We bet the ladies loved that.

My grandma sells/rents houses in the Denver area. A few weeks ago I had to help her evict a few college bros from one of her properties. This is a cottage style home, no second floor, no basement. These guys literally dug a hole in the wood floor and made a basement where they've been throwing trash away for the last year. Like it's a living room... with a tv... and a couple arm chairs... and a giant hole in the ground filled with ice cream wrappers, pizza boxes, and cigarette butts.

In Seattle there was a house just up the block from my work. This was probably around 2007/08 or so. There was a zombie themed rave and said house became the after party. Most of the club kids knew each other and the ages ranged from like 16 to 21. Unfortunately they invited this loner dude who came over and started unloading a shotgun around 6:30-7 in the morning.

Kids dressed like zombies were pouring out of the house jumping over fences, into the street, into the backyard. Nobody knew who was actually wounded and who wasn't because everybody looked fucked up due to their costume. I think like 6-7 died. It has always stuck with me. Probably because it was in my neighborhood in which I lived and worked.

Eventually the house went up for sale and I always wondered how much the prospective buyers knew about what happened there. Houses in Seattle don't stay long on the market so it had a lot of real estate agents and buyers coming and going. I also wondered if there was a little discount considering it's history.

I was a property manager who handled all the leasing and running of 126 privately owned houses. This tenant of ours, maybe early 50's, lived alone in one of our rural properties with her 4 dogs. She wasn't a well lady and had regular doctors appointments.

One day she missed her appointment and the doctor called us (small town, everyone knows everyone) to see if we can get a hold of her because it's unlike her to miss an appointment. We tried calling, texting etc, but didn't hear back. It wasn't unusual for her to take a few days to reply and it was summer, extremely hot and with her condition she didn't handle it very well.

Two weeks had passed and we still never heard anything from her, so we wrote a letter thinking that maybe her phone wasn't working. She paid her rent directly into the company trust account, so we rarely had her visit the office to pay and her house was always immaculate during inspections, so she was a good, trouble-free tenant.

A week after we sent the letter, we still didn't get a reply, so I went to visit her. I drove out to the house and noticed something wasn't right straight away.

Her dogs didn't greet me.

Gardens and lawn was a bit over grown.

Letter box was full of mail.

I timidly walked up the stairs to knock when I was greeted by a foul smell. I instantly knew she was dead.

I used my key to unlock the door and found her face down dead in the middle of the lounge room, dressed in her pyjamas. Her dogs were also dead in the kitchen, water and food bowls empty and the house was locked up. No windows open or doors.

I recently had some buyers move into a house that was being sold due to a divorce. They had mentioned after a few days that it seemed a lot of the door hinges were slightly damaged/bent as well as other things that could point to excessive use.

A few weeks later, my clients call and tell me that they got a green card in the mail from one of the previous owners. I called the listing agent who said he would get in contact with the green card recipient. She turns up later that day unannounced at my clients new house and extremely excited.

YESTERDAY, my client was going through the garage and found a STACK of police reports detailing tons of domestic abuse charges that included threats of deporting the green card recipient if she told/did not stay.

My sister is a realtor. About 12 or so years ago, there was a house down the street from me that two elderly sisters lived in together. The younger sister was more able bodied, and cared for the older sister. When she grew tired of it she beat her sister to death and left her on the back screened in porch to rot. My sister sold that house.

Lady wants me to list her house. I go over and do the routine. As I go to the bedroom closet, she yells, "Oh no! Don't go in there! It's a horrible mess! It's a walk in closet, but please don't go in there. It's such a mess and I'm embarrassed." She went on about it way too long for it to be "just a mess."

I leave it alone and that's that. House gets listed and two weeks later, I offer to do an open house. The lady has started packing already because I already helped her find a new house. She leaves, I get the open house going, and a nice couple comes in. They get to the master bedroom and there's a wall of boxes in front of the closet.

I explain that it's a walk in closet and last time I was here, the lady said it was just filled to the brim with stuff. The wife wants to see the closet. The husband starts moving boxes. I ask him not to and he keeps going saying, "if I'm going to buy a house, I want to see the whole thing." Well, he kind of had me there because I know they loved everything else about the house and the wife seemed super stoked about the kitchen and the master bath.

The last box is moved and the door is opened. Inside is a 10x10 foot room jam packed with sex toys. They're each standing up on very nice custom shelving units with glass doors on the front. The glass doors also have numbers made from a home label maker unit. On the inside of the door is a large sheet of paper. Each number has a corresponding name of some guy.

That's when we noticed two large boxes in the corner. Each box contained 36 unopened "Clone-A-Willy" making kits. We stared in amazement for awhile and then the husband just lost it. It took a good 20 minutes for him to stop laughing (or at least randomly bursting out in laughter). We put everything back the way it was and that was the end of me letting anyone check out the closet for the rest of the open house.

This couple actually ended up buying the house. And since I know everyone will ask, there were 183 home-made toys in the closet (and a few store-bought ones too).

Ok so when I was doing the rounds looking to buy my first house we had made an appointment to view this little cottage which was totally in our budget. We weren't familiar with the area so we got there about 45mins early. Instead of just waiting round for the agent to show up we decided to take a tour around the neighbourhood and found another property that had an open house. The one was so not in our budget but we decided to take a look anyway just for sh_ts and giggles. It was very fancy pants. White marble flooring, gym, it's own freaking hairdresser room. Anyway the property was split level and built on the side of a hill. So I'm super interested in looking at everything just to see how the other half live and I go into the laundry room which was at the back of the bottom level of the house. Off the laundry room there was another door which was smaller than a standard door way (lengthwise) and I thought 'oh cool, a secret passageway'. So I go through the doorway and it's a passage way that runs longways down the back of the house. One side is the dirt and the other is gyprock. So I follow the passageway to the end it's very dimly lit and at the end it opens up into a small room which the current owners were using for storage. I nearly sh_t myself when I spot it. There, standing amongst random boxes of god-knows-what, was a life freaking sized replica of Freddy freaking Krueger!!!!

I nope'd out of there and we left very quickly. Suffice to say that we looked at the other property but did not put an offer in. That house is still on the market 4 years later.

Realtors of Reddit: What's the most disturbing history you've learned about a house you were selling?

My parents were realtors, and also flipped houses. When I was growing up I used to help them a lot, usually by cleaning. When I was 12 I was helping with a house that was infested with roaches. I noticed the closets were smeared with sh*t and children's hand prints... there were fingernail scratches on the insides of the doors as well. I asked my parents why this was the case. They told me the old tenants used to lock their toddlers in the closets for days.

Not a realtor, happened to some friends who bought a property, very old site, about 300 years old which had been part of a convent, the living room of the nuns exactly. The aforementioned place had been refurbished as small apartments/houses about 50 years ago.

They went to live there and there was some maintenance given to certain places of the property (the common areas) there was a wall which was slightly wider than the others, they began to give maintenance to that wall but the outer layer fell apart (due to the rain and age) while trying to fix that they found dozens of skeletons of babies, very little babies and very old little skeletons.

Well, authorities and historians came and went by, and they came to the conclusion that the nuns tossed their babies there right after giving birth to them, lord knows if they were alive or dead by then.

I work in property management on the rental side, and would frequently do post move out walks to assess damages from previous renters, and make ready lists for new ones.

There was a house on my list that had been vacant for a while in a semi seedy area, not a huge deal by any means as it's the middle of the day. I go to the front door, and it was stuck shut. Shoulder checked it a few times, and it would give a little but I couldn't get it open, like furniture or something was barring the way.

So I walk around back and completely ignore he broken storm door (oops) leading up to the other entry. The second I open the door I notice three guys standing in the living room around a table. One conveniently had a gun pointed directly at me.

I apologized, and politely let myself out. No more than ten seconds after I get into my car, our maintenance calls warning me that the property has been broken into half a dozen times already and I shouldn't go in alone.

Took a couple to see a house in my neighborhood. nice 50's bungalow. there was an add-on of 2 rooms and a bathroom. one room and the bathroom were really well done. one room had a 4x4 foot floor to ceiling cage made of 2x4 and chicken wire with dirt and shit all over the walls and floor, stained in and streaked with what looked like human hands. There was a plastic mop sink in the corner with a hose.

My dad flips houses for a living. Back when I was in grade school he bought a duplex that was in foreclosure. One side was completely normal and the other side was disgusting. The guy who lived there before never paid his water bill and peed in jars that he kept literally all over the place. He had no furniture and it was like he never unpacked because there were boxes everywhere that were super unorganized. It was odd because we found out that he was a waiter at one of the oldest country clubs in CLT and made decent money. He left all of his money scattered between his piles of sh*t (literally and figuratively). My parents had my other siblings and I go on a scavenger hunt for all of the money and to help clean out it. Ew

I went to visit my sister in California and once I flew in I wanted to shower. Well I took a long enough shower that the mirror was all steamy when I got out. Except one tiny dot in the middle of the mirror. My immediate thought process was "oh weird. I guess if you draw on a mirror with expo it won't steam around it". So I went to go investigate and upon looking right up to it I realized it was a camera lens.

Well I freaked and ran out to her room and dressed then went and told her. We went around our back and looked in a utility closet type thing that looked like it was in line with her room. Sure enough the drywall had been cut away and re patched at some point. We cut it open and while there was no camera there was a little lens still stuck to the mirror. It's real freaky to think whoever was getting actually spied on and if they ever actually knew. Eeeeeek

The lady next door to me died, and wasn't found until she was....more liquid than solid on her living room carpet. The family couldn't pay something about back taxes or something, and the house went to HUD to auction. Hud paid for some cleanup, but not to replace the carpet, only steam clean it.

So it finally sold, and was talking to the guy who is flipping it, before I could mention the death, he asked if the house had a water leak under the foundation...... Because when they ripped up the carpet and pad to put down the lament floor, it was really dirty and got all over them and their clothes...... Told him what happened and how HUD went cheap on what to fix before the auction, he got green as a pea and started puking right there on his side of the fence.

When I was looking for my last house, I went with my wife and realtor to look at several houses. We went to look at one house in particular because it didn't seem like the price they were asking for could be real... huge house sitting on tons of land with outbuildings, going for millions under market value. We got there, and the realtor said "oh, I should mention, a serial killer lived here and when he was put away cops found 11 bodies on the property."

The house we are remodeling & selling now - the previous tenant legit owned almost 40 cats. They completely destroyed the house. She was found dead after seven days, and yes, they ate some of her. Some of the cats just roam the neighborhood now.

It was easily $200,000 less then any neighboring house. It had some fixer-upper problems but otherwise a good house. Beautiful atrium, master bedroom was all windows looking at the mountains, and a pool overlooking the valley.

We walk in and no lights work. That is ok. Plenty of windows upstairs to give the living room and kitchen light. We walk into the kitchen and pictures of the family and children are spread out all over the dining room table. There is still food on the table. Dishes aren't done. All their medicine is still in the drawers.

It was as if they were abducted overnight by some government agency.

We go downstairs and it is very dark. Only a few windows. All of the TVs are turned backwards facing the wall. These aren't flat screen light-weight TVs either. These are the old school, giant TVs.

There are notes all over the house about how much they love and miss each other. Love notes to the woman of the house.

... and a bunch of notes which get more and more insane. It was very poltergeist.

'I can't believe you didn't show up'

'Does this sh*t even matter to you?'

A couple of ripped out pages.

A weird sketch of a woman with the eyes poked out.

Then a few pages of some weird writings that I didn't understand. They were English letters but it wasn't English. Very dark angry pencil lines.

It was a little psychotic. It was very much in contrast with the love notes all over the rest of the house.

It was top top notch creepy sh*t. We have no idea what happened there but we can only assume they had to flee the country or ghosts.

An old friend of mine bought a nice house in a quiet neighborhood. The place is beautiful and has a really nice deck outback with a hot tub. About 3 weeks after closing he was cleaning out some previously owner junk in one of the closets and found an old DVD. It was a porno with a hot tub scene on the cover. His hot tub. It was epic.